Loyalties
by Disciple of Shai-Hulud
Summary: Honestly, I'm just making this up as I go.
1. Prologue

_Note: I'm even less certain and knowledgeable of ground tactics than I am of [fictional] space warfare. A couple of my previous stories incorporate naval warfare, but none of them have anything on ground engagements. If there are mistakes, discrepancies, or mixed-up terminologies, please, feel free to enlighten me in your comments._

_Content of this particular chapter is still subject to change._

_This isn't the last chapter, though, and will probably be the first of my fanfictions that I plan to develop further._

_Update: I wasn't satisfied with the ending, so I extrapolated. Hopefully it's better now._

The ride out of New Mombasa was quiet, eerily so. Seated in the middle of the military transport's left bench, Rose silently hugged herself and waited out the ride. Squeezed between two corpulent men, she tried her best to minimize the amount of contact she had with them. The canvas flaps of the military truck were missing, so the oppressive heat of the sun beat down terribly on their backs. Sweat poured profusely down her face and back, soaking her white top through in minutes. The ride didn't go smoothly either; the undeveloped desert road was dotted with rocks and potholes, frequently jostling and shaking the truck and the passengers inside. Yet all this went unnoticed for the refugees of New Mombasa. In the cramped spaces of their transport, no one spoke a word. All of them knew what was happening. The war…the Covenant…had finally reached their home.

At the rear of their truck, two Marine privates sat, poised and ready should trouble start to happen. Following them were four Marine LRV escorts, their olive green finish gleaming brightly in the New Mombasa sun (_They must be new_). Ahead of them were at least four more military transports, carrying more civilians that have been evacuated from the city. They were led by another couple of "Warthog" Light Reconnaissance Vehicle, only accompanied by two of their LRV's close cousin, the M831 Troop Transport. At either side of their party were Mongoose riders. On each of them sat one Marine on driving duty, while another was aboard for weapons fire support. Overhead, the sound of one support AV-14 "Hornet" could be heard as it provided air support for the civilian evac train. They were the last group to be evac'd from the city.

For the umpteenth time, Rose's eyes scanned the occupants of her transport. No familiar faces from what she could tell. Rose was always good at remembering faces. She may not be as skilled in placing names on people, but she never forgot a face. Two people stood out from cluster of refugeess. One was a large, heavyset man. He had strong, piercing blue eyes and sported the familiar "white sidewalls" military cut. His left bicep featured an unusual tattoo: a shield with olive green outlines and a central chevron in a deeper shade of green. Perhaps he was a retired Navy service man, but she doubted it. The other interesting occupant was a woman. She had dark brown hair with dark red highlights, prominent cheekbones and thin lips. But what made her curious were her eyes, a brilliant shade of green that glinted in the afternoon sunlight. Behind her dark brown/reddish bangs, they scanned the inside of the truck with an intensity that startled her. When those eyes reached hers she was filled with a sort of dread that she could not understand. Shaking the thought off, she directed her thoughts outwards, letting her mind and imagination drift, trying to calm herself despite the fact that she knew, they all knew, that the Earth was under attack.

She thought of her job, a teaching position in a New Mombassa Prep School. She thought of the workload she had left unattended the other day and how she might never even get the chance to finish them, or even get reprimanded for handing them in late. She thought of her friends whom she might never see again. _No_. She thought to herself. There was nothing to be gained by worrying about all that now. Surely she wasn't about to stop the Covenant by worrying over these things. Gripping her knees, she closed her eyes and attempted to calm herself. _Breathe in, breathe out_. Quietly, she repeated the action over and over. She had just reached that inner quiet when –

_BOOM!_ Ahead, they saw the lead Warthog explode in a wash of plasma. "-under attack! Repeat! We are under attack! Covenant Banshees, two of them. Position, designation Tango-one-zero-seven. Repeat. Tango-one-zero-seven." Quickly, the situation outside dissolved into chaos. Gunners from all of their escorts sprayed the skies with automatic weapons fire, trying to do critical damage to the alien aerial assault craft. Their own aerial support laid its own counterattack to the enemy aircrafts. One of them blew up in a ball of fire and raining debris. The other Banshee hurriedly left the seen, smoke trailing in its wake. The passengers of the evac transports cheered at the results, a marked contrast with the grim faced reactions of their Marine escorts. "– Covie attack broke off. Banshee bearing south by south east –" the words were lost to Rose as the Banshee, which had retreated from the fray, came back with reinforcements that came from the sky. Possibly dropped off from the Capital ship looming above. "Contact! One squadron of Banshees. Count eighteen ships…wait…No, eighteen Banshees and one dropship."

They were bearing in fast. To buy them time, their Hornet escort headed off to engage the enemy. To be shot down immediately. "Command, we need reinforcements. We have civilians here." "Mongoose, form up behind the trucks. Rocket support, now!" Two trucks were caught in the crossfire as the Banshees strafed the party with plasma fire. After a lead of a hundred meters, the banshees broke off and started another strafing run. This time, they didn't pass over unscathed. Two from their number were felled from the sky while a third turned to a ball of flame and plasma as it collided with two of the Mongoose rocket complements. "_Hang tight, Marines. Reinforcements are on their way_," a voice from the radio sounded.

And they did. Two full squadrons of AV-14 Hornets with a complement of two Pelican dropships joined the fray. As the Banshees were pulling up from their attack run, they were met by a barrage of missiles and automatic weapons fire from the reinforcement team. Now the Marines did cheer, along with their civilian charges. This euphoria didn't last long.

"Contact! Three enemy gunships approaching from low orbit! Count, four…no…five support squadrons with them." They had no time. With superior forces advancing on them there was little that they could do. "Evac team, this is the 405th Ops Group. Get those civs out of here. We'll handle this." The two Hornet squadrons formed into a cloud-vee formation. Hurriedly, they let loose with everything they had, streaks of rocket exhaust sailing towards the Banshees.

Captain Stewart of _Jager_-squadron, acting flight commander of the 405th, grimaced in frustration. That last maneuver only took out five of the Banshee aircrafts. They need to break an opening in the Banshee screen, otherwise they wouldn't get a shot at those gunships. In his mind, Stewart reviewed everything he knew about Banshee aerial tactics. Despite their advance technologies, Covenant aerial combat was mostly standard, lacking complexity and unpredictability. There! He had it. Covenant predictability in battle doctrine. "Jager squadron, form into attack trios. Pelicans stay close. _Blaze_-squadron, cover our backs." Banking right, Stewart led his squadron into an attack on the Banshee's left flank. "Jager, follow my lead. Follow attack pattern _Helix._" Over the canopy, Stewart watched the Covenant split their battle forces to face Jager Squadron. "All right, Jager. Conical dispersion pattern, now!" Predictably, inevitably, the Covenant flight scattered to chase after each individual fighter. Hidden behind the cloud of Hornets, both dropships were left unnoticed by the Banshees, free to pick of any target they wanted. "Pelicans, fire everything!"

With that flight of Banshees taken care off, Jager squadron was free to attack the left flank of the remaining Banshees. "Captain," Jager Two's voice announced in his helmet, "Covenant gunships are bearing on our vector. Sensors detect plasma weapons charging." Stewart gritted his teeth. If they made it to the middle of the gunship formation, they would severely handicap their enemy's ability to attack. They would be too close to shoot without risking damage to friendly ships. Their problem, however, was _getting_ there. "All ships, make for portside of the westmost gunship. Pelicans, fallback to the evacuation team."

Jager Four cut in, "Too late, sir! Plasma defense is in effect!" One by one, energy lances took out each one of the Hornets. Stewart keyed for the team freq. "Fallback! All ships, fallback!" Suddenly, his ship bucked beneath him. Red lights flashed and alarms blared. Diagnostics ran through the ships computer and revealed that his engine was gutted. Before he could eject from his ship, the world around him exploded in a ball of fire and metal.

***

Rose couldn't remember clearly what had happened. She recalled the grim faced expressions on the faces of their Marine escorts, the distant explosions of battle, the brilliant flashes of bluish plasma in the background. What happened next came so quickly. Shouts of terror, blue splashes, blinding light…

"Covenant ambush! Wraith tanks, somewhere off –" their Marine escort screamed over the radio. Scrambling for cover, the last thing she saw was an energy mortar splashing next to their covey.

Her next memory was the experience of being herded onboard a Covenant capital ship, the awe-inspiring and frightening experience of soaring up the Earth's surface, drawn in by the warship's gravity lift. Of the few refugees that were salvaged from the wreckage, she only saw the green-eyed woman. The rest fell prey to the Covenant tradition of POW policy.

***

"An interesting catch, Ship Master," one of Refumee's subordinates remarked, referring to the two female specimens they procured. "What are your plans for the infidels?" "In due time, Major. We will see…"


	2. Chapter 1

Rose didn't know what to expect from captors. She had never seen Covenant ships before, much less anyone belonging to that dreaded race. All she knew about them were from what the UNSC's ministry of propaganda released from the public. They were fearless creatures that brutally attacked humanity without thought or contemplation, burning worlds that went in their way. From all their descriptions, they were as mindlessly brutal as they looked alien.

So it came as a surprise to her to see the Covenant interact with each other with a sense of hierarchy and organization. They were organized and intelligent. Sure, the small bipedal ones in the breather masks trotted back and forth with little coordination and their hand gestures seemed primitive and unintelligent, but they responded to their larger superiors with respect and deference. All the creatures aboard the ship carried themselves with a military precision, everything done according to schedule. She once saw, from the observation deck she was charged with cleaning, a parade group greet the, what appeared to be, their religious leader sitting on an antigrav chair accompanied by the Ship Master.

The Ship Master was an enigma to her. After bringing her on the bridge and conversing with her a bit (via the comm-translator he had outfitted for her), he had no further interactions with him, except when he would chance upon her cell to engage in pleasantries. Her only other interactions with the aliens were with her Jackal guards, though they were limited to mere hoots and barks, and the occasional shoves and shocks from their, what she dubbed, "pacification rods." She hated the Jackals. Those rabid, bird-like carrions were prone to fits of violence and madness. Early in her captivity she had made the mistake of challenging these creatures and it was only through the intervention of some Elite officers that her guards didn't take too many liberties in pacifying her and left her for dead.

There were other prisoners of war in the ship that Rose soon came into contact with. It seemed that the Ship Master was in the habit of collecting humans, though for what purpose, she couldn't fathom. He never experimented on them, despite what centuries of xenophobia had taught pre-Covenant war era humans had believed. _Alien-probing_ was as foreign a notion to them as those creatures were to her. There were six of them, two men and four women, though who they were she never asked. They kept mostly to themselves; Rose theorized that they may have been prisoners for far too long to be comfortable with any new presence among them. Her only true companion was Lea, the woman she was captured with. A graduate of a small community college, Lea was struggling from one low-rent job to another. Rose learned that Lea was in the business district of New Mombassa, having come from an interview, when the evacuation began.

Rose was disturbed from her thoughts by the arrival of her cellmate. The hazy purple light of the prison shield collapsed in an instant as Lea was thrown onto her cot. The cackling Jackals gave her a few condescending hoots before bringing the shield back up. Lea was a mess, Rose could see. There were fresh welts and burns on her arms as well as on her legs that weren't there this morning. From what she knew, Lea was only charged with cleaning the level 4 decks today. She wondered why she suffered such treatment. Not that it was unusual for Lea or herself to return at (what her standard Earth time watch told her was) night with new injuries. A groan escaped from Lea. Hurrying to her side, Rose helped her up and used her handkerchief to clean up the stained blood from Lea's split lip.

"What happened to you this time?" Rose asked while trying to clean the wound.

"A _Bluey_ that got carried away. You know how it is." Rose nodded in agreement. Aside from Jackals, those low-ranking, Blue armored Elites were the most hostile to their presence. They normally held their anger in check, especially when in the presence of their superiors, but every now and then, a few of them would take out their frustrations on the day on the human prisoners. It was decreed by the Ship Master that the murder of any of his prisoners by anyone under his command would count as a major crime, punishable by immediate evisceration. Because of this, a rankled _Bluey_ would usually grab the nearest _pacifier_ from their Jackal guards and land a few strikes before surrendering them to their excited guards.

Rose began to address the other wounds on Lea's legs. "Anything serious that they may have broken?"

Lea raised her skirt to show the marks on her thigh. "Not really. At least I'm given enough time to heal before they start zapping us again." Finished, Lea took off her shoes and sank into the cot. "By the way, I heard from one of the blueys that we're supposed to report to the Ship Master later."

"Why?" Lea only shrugged in answer.

Being ushered through the bridge's portal and into the Ship Master's command center filled both women with fear and trepidation. The sight of the armed guards, and of the Ship Master's own personal guard, was a terrible sight to behold. Grasping the other's hand in hers, both women crossed the threshold, accompanied by their Jackal security detail. With each step that they took, Rose noted every weapon in the room was slowly trained on them. Upon passing the cold, metal archway, they were commanded to stop. Was it her, or were their captors' plasma weapons beginning to glow brighter?

Stopping in the center, both women stood there, knees shaking, hands quaking, in the sights of every weapon there and the eyes of the stoic, imposing Ship Master. "Leave us," he said, with a hand signal. Most of the Elite guard, along with their Jackal security, left the room, leaving the two humans alone with the Ship Master, his honor guard, and his subordinate officer.

He stared at us, the Ship Master did, with those deep, penetrating reptilian eyes. His eyes worked their way over our bodies, paying particular attention, I noticed, to Lea specially, though I wondered if he were merely examining her fresh wounds.

"I take it that Minor Redumee has caused you some trouble, _Mizzz_ Lea." He confirmed, his tongue finding difficulty with the word, even through the translator. "Rest assured that he has been summarily dealt with for his actions." Lea could only nervously jerk her head in response. His eyes turned to me next.

"_Mizzz_ Rose, I trust that none of my crew has unjustly harmed you as of late?"

"No, my lord," I stammered. It's true, ever since my last incidence with the Jackals, they seemed to be less harsh towards me when on guard duty.

He nodded appreciatively. "That is good. Forgive me. I sometimes cannot stop my soldiers from being a little bit too…zealous in the performance of their duties. I am only glad that you weren't victim to their more _enthusiastic_ approaches to pacification. I—" His words were cut short by the sound of a shrill alarm.

The silver armored elite turned. "Ship Master! Flight patrol detected a mass of incoming enemy ships. Reports show several of their massive attack-class ships bearing our way."

The Ship Master turned towards the holo-display that suddenly flared up. "Bring up the tactical readouts." His subordinate nodded, and then looked at the two humans suspiciously. "Perhaps, the females can return to their cells for now, your grace."

But the Ship Master shook his head. "No. This is something I'd like them to see. Bring up a live feed of the battle." A video screen was superimposed over the tactical screen, data streaming down on either side. "I count six of their assault-class frigates bearing on our position." Docked within Earth's atmosphere, the Covenant ship was safe from the reach of the more powerful, yet non-atmosphere combatable human capital ships. Bringing up the tactical screen again, the Ship Master spied fighter squadrons coming in to assist the frigates.

"Launch fighter squadrons and awaken the point defense A.I." Scanning the tactical screen the Ship Master inquired, "Are there any ships nearby that can respond to our call?"

"There are, your Excellency. Should we call for aid?" The Master Elite cocked his head at that remark. "'Aid,' subordinate? No. Send the word that someone will have to clear the resulting debris when we're through."


End file.
